Wireless communications has been evolving toward ever increasing data rates (e.g., from IEEE 802.11a/g to IEEE 802.11n to IEEE 802.11ac). In high-density deployment situations, overall system efficiency may become more important than higher data rates. For example, in high-density hotspot and cellular offloading scenarios, many devices competing for the wireless medium may have low to moderate data rate requirements (with respect to the very high data rates of IEEE 802.11ac). The frame structure used for conventional and legacy IEEE 802.11 communications including very-high throughput (VHT) communications may be less suitable for such high-density deployment situations. A recently-formed study group for Wi-Fi evolution referred to as the IEEE 802.11 High Efficiency WLAN (HEW) study group (SG) (i.e., IEEE 802.11ax) is addressing these high-density deployment scenarios.
UL MU-MIMO is one approach that may be used with HEW to improve efficiency and throughput. With UL MU-MIMO, transmissions may be received from several devices concurrently. One issue with UL MU-MIMO is determining the receiver gain since the transmissions from the different devices may be received at differing power levels and different noise levels.
Thus there are general needs for devices and methods for HEW communication including devices and method for UL MU-MIMO in HEW. There are also general needs for devices and methods for improved receiver performance including for setting receiver gain in UL MU-MIMO HEW.